Episode Title: The Infinite Vulcan
Air Date: 10/20/1973
Written by Walter
Koenig
Directed by Hal
Sutherland
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock and Spock II DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA “Bones” James
Doohan as Lieutenant Commander
Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”, Agmar, and Stavos Keniclius
V George Takei as Lieutenant
Hikaru Sulu Nichelle
Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Phylos
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The landing party from the Enterprise is exploring the planet Phylos. Mr. Sulu comes across an interesting plant that can actually walk and then reroute itself. He shows the Captain and then tries to pick it up. However, he then finds himself pricked by a thorn that turns out to be poisonous and now he is quickly dying. McCoy tries to save Mr. Sulu but can’t. Fortunately, it turns out this planet is inhabited by intelligent life. The locals of this planet are intelligent plants. They are basically plant people and they have the ability to save Sulu.
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| Sulu is down but not yet out |
After Mr. Sulu recovers, the leader of their hosts, a plant person named Agmar, takes the Starfleet officers on a tour of their city. It turns out that most of their people are dead. After they encountered humanoids a generation before the plant people of Phylos were exposed to a virus that wiped out their ability to reproduce and killed most of their population. So, most of the city is empty and there is even a fleet of space ships that were never able to be put to use.
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| Plant People |
Suddenly they are attacked by flying plant creatures. They can’t defend themselves because their phasers have been neutralized by the technology on the planet. The creatures take Spock and make off with him. As the three remaining officers try to recover, they run into a giant (like Jack and the Bean Stock giant) human who calls himself Stavos Keniclius 5. He says that Spock is the perfect specimen to build an army and they better get lost because they can’t save Spock but if they stay, they will need saving.
Back aboard the Enterprise, the crew brainstorms about what to do. Uhura discovers that Stavos Keniclius was a rogue scientist from the Eugenics Wars. So, for the second time in their lives, they were faced with another person from that famous 1990s conflict. Now unlike Kahn the man wasn’t in suspended animation but he had grown to be a giant. However, since he referred to himself with the number “5” Kirk concludes he is a type of overgrown clone. He orders the ship’s phasers to be used to try to damage the city’s defenses but the alien technology proves immune. McCoy has an idea for a weapon that they could try.
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| Flying plants |
The three officers return and Kirk uses his supreme fighting skills that are famed throughout the galaxy to grab Agmar and get him to bring them to Mr. Spock. They find him but he is in a device, when McCoy scans him, they discover his brain is shutting down. Next to our giant human is a giant Spock who we are told is “Spock 2” and the reason why the prime Spock is dying. All that Spock is mentally is transferred into the giant. They flying plant creatures come back but the landing party fights them off with pesticides.
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| Plant people attacking |
At Scotty’s insistence Uhura is able to communicate with the landing party at great risk to the ship. She informs Kirk that the fleet was to send an army in bring order to this side of the galaxy. Kirk appeals directly to Spock Two reminding him of IDIC and that the Federation has been a force for peace. Spock Two then solves everything by mind-melding with his other self. This ensures that both Spocks get to keep all their memories. Keniclius wonders if his entire existence is now worth nothing to which the Spocks show him that working together he and Spock 2 can save the Phylosian civilization from extinction. The two giants now have a noble mission and the original Spock returns with the landing party of the Enterprise.
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| Stavos Keniclius V |
Additional thoughts: Well, we have a second story about a Spock duplicate. This duplicate has a couple of advantages. The first is he is so much bigger that they are not going to have any problem telling them apart and Big Spock is so helpful. It is too bad this series didn’t include Ensign Chekov, but it is nice that Walter Koenig got to become the first Star Trek actor to contribute behind the camera as well. Many more would follow him.
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| Spock not doing so good! |
I really did like the idea of the Phylosians. The most intelligent and dominant life form on the planet is not the ape-like apex predators but rather a family of talking plants. After all, if we are seeking out strange new worlds this is the type of thing we should be running into. Alien peoples whose entire evolutionary paths are from a road quite different from our own. The last time we had something as neat as this you have to go all the way back to the Horta from “The Devil in the Dark.”
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| Spock II |
Another relic from the Eugenics War. That 20th century conflict has now given the crew of the Enterprise two headaches now. However, this one seems a little more reasonable he wants power to prevent war and impose peace. He is just looking for a hero to do that with and thought he found one in Mr. Spock. I can hardly blame him there Mr. Spock is a good guy and if I had to pick one person to help me solve the problems of the universe, he is probably the one I would pick. Kahn in “Space Seed” just wanted to install himself as the world or galaxy’s ruler.
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| Spock helping himself out! |
Is it just me or do other fans want to see a scene where Spock explains
to Sarek and Amanda the existence of Spock Two? What would be his parents’ reaction to this
giant version of their son? Would they
view him as another son of theirs or something entirely different? Knowing Sarek he would base his reaction on
emotion and try to pretend his reasons were logical.
FINAL GRADE 4 of 5
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